Chip Conley is the New York Times bestselling author of four books including Emotional Equations. In this interview, he teaches two emotional equations we can use to increase the intimacy in our lives and find meaning within our deepest personal challenges.

I’ve found that four conditions often forecast the advent of real and healthy love. Love’s arrival feels like magic; a gift of luck. Yet we can invite that luck by approaching our dating life differently. If these shifts are happening for you, be encouraged. You’re probably well on the way to finding the kind of love that can last.

Sexual attraction can’t be forced. Most of us have learned that the hard way. What we haven’t been taught is that sexual attractions can be educated. Even if you’re relentlessly attracted to bad-boys, bad girls, or to unavailable people, you can still learn how to cultivate your attraction to partners who are good for you. This post will teach some ways to do this.

If you’re looking for more happiness and greater intimacy in the year ahead, here are two of the most valuable tools I know. Don’t be deceived by the comfort and pleasure they bring; these are direct paths to profound life-change. Try them out, and enjoy the deliciously subversive experience of learning through joy.

No matter what you’ve been told, no matter what you’ve feared to be true, the search for love is essentially neither a race against time nor a hunt for a needle in the haystack. It’s a journey toward intimacy, and we shape that journey by the roads we choose. In this post, I want to suggest a shortcut for the brave of heart.